Choosing what to write in a subject line of an email— especially when trying to bait someone to open it— always seemed really difficult until I realized the emails I’m most likely to open immediately have no subject. (no subject) seems both the most intimate and the most straightforward and always stands out visually, right?
I once dated someone whose parents were wealthy enough to live in an incredibly swanky city apartment building, one with rigid rules about pets. Not the type of rules you’d imagine, though — tenants could have have as many cats or dogs as they pleased, provided their paws never touched the carpet in the building’s shared corridors, elevators or lobby. The guy’s parents owned a small plastic stroller, the type of contraption that little girls push their dolls around in, to transport their tiny fluffy dog (Crackers was her name) downstairs and out of the building. We used to wheel Crackers out after dinner, sometimes crossing paths with other tenants and their strollered animals. Then we’d walk her a few blocks until she took a shit, and he would scoop up the poop with his hand covered in a plastic bag. I’d strap Crackers back into the stroller, wheel her past the doorman and back into the elevator. “Hiiiiiii there, Crackers,” the doorman always said, staring down at the dog in the stroller. The logistics of wealth and class never seemed so comical.
